The Young Scholar from a Humble Family

I, Su Mu, transmigrated into the most impoverished male lead in history. From the start, I was clinging to life by a thread, with not a single coin to my name, and my beautiful wife was about to catch the eye of a local bully. Other people transmigrate as princes and nobles; I transmigrated straight into a hellish survival game. But it was no big deal. As a modern-day workaholic, I had plenty of ways to show the ancients what “technology and ruthless ingenuity” could do. Making maltose, firing porcelain, producing honeycomb briquettes… I started with small businesses at the village entrance. Founding academies, reforming the imperial examinations, building cannons… Before I knew it, I was creating pillars of the state. Those who once bullied and humiliated me now had to address me respectfully: “Grand Secretary Su, about these taxes… could we perhaps negotiate?” I thought I only wanted to make a little money and provide for my wife. But as the business grew, I ended up revitalizing the entire Great Xia Dynasty. The emperor treated me like a brother, and the princes fought to become my students. It was just that… why had the man on the Dragon Throne been looking at me with an increasingly complicated expression lately? This is the story of a transmigrator forced to get down to business, who turned a side hustle into his main career and happened to spark an Industrial Revolution along the way. A friendly warning: this novel is also known as How to Get Rich Legally in Ancient Times, My Wife Is a Hidden Big Shot, and The Years I Started a Business with the Emperor.